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Issues: Single and lone parents />
"Ñ WHY ARE CHILDREN REACHING PUBERTY SO YOUNG ?
So what is happening to our children? Are they really reaching puberty early?
At the turn of the century, the average age at which girls started menstruating was 16, and by the 1980¡¦s the average age was just over 13 but there is evidence to suggest the mean age has fallen even further. It is much more difficult to ascertain when boys reach puberty without asking intimate questions. Boys were maturing between the ages of 11 and 14, while more studies show that a substantial proportion are now reaching puberty at ten.
But boys and girls are bigger and stronger than they used to be, with the result that they are maturing sexually much sooner. For example an 11-year-old boy does not understand the meaning of sex and has no understanding of the meaning of parenthood.
However, there is no evidence to suggest the age at which children reach puberty would continue to fall, because improvements in nutrition had reached a peak. The average age at which children first have intercourse is coming down, and it is almost a result of increased awareness of sexual matters through magazines, television and the pop industry.
There is also no doubt that the more open a society is about sexual matters at earlier ages, the more responsible young people are about sexual behaviour. In schools, sex education lessons need to be on the curriculum earlier, a fact borne out by the increase in the number of children experimenting at younger and younger ages. However, many of the young people who were interviewed who had lost their virginity before they were 16 regretted it later and said they wished they had waited until they were older.
"Ñ LEARNING THE SAFE WAY
Teens want sex education
Ignorance about sexuality and contraception increases teenagers¡¦ exposure to the health risks of early pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. But parents are often uncomfortable talking to their children about sexual matters, so teens instead get information from their peers. Surveys show that teenage sexual activity is increasing in many countries, and that in some, adolescents are starting sexual activity earlier and having more partners and more casual relationships. But many sexually active teens know little about reproduction and contraception. That¡¦s why they sometimes tell each other that if you have sexual intercourse maybe while standing in a river, or if after having sexual intercourse you take a number of capsules or aspirins, you won¡¦t be pregnant.
This report also notes that teenage mothers are at least twice as likely to die during childbirth and their children have higher levels of illness and death.
Furthermore young women are particularly vulnerable to sexual transmitted diseases.
But adolescents are often too ashamed or too poor to seek help from health services.
Many first sexual experiences are with older partners, often the result of force or financial inducements, that girls from poor families may find difficult to resist.
The fact is that teenagers are being exposed to things like HIV, or STDs and teenage pregnancy, and they need to know how to handle their sexuality at a certain stage in life.
The misconception is that sex education teaches people how to have sex, whereas it actually teaches young people about the development of their body, reproductive health and contraceptives.
A world wide research has shown that school sex education does not increase sexual activity but reduces teen pregnancy and STDs.
The report also finds that family life education leads to responsible sexual behaviour, including higher level of abstinence, higher use of contraception and fewer sexual partners.
These effects are greater where children and parents discuss sex and reproduction frankly.
Since 1994, many governments and non governmental organisations have taken initiatives meet adolescents¡¦ reproductive and sexual health needs. Programmes at a clinic help them to see that adolescence is a positive stage where they can enjoy life, and help them to be able to make decisions and choices that develop positive self-images¡¦. And nurses see the positive changes that sex education can bring.
"Ñ TEENAGE CONCEPTIONS
Pregnancies among under 16s have started to increase again. But even though they are far less likely to get pregnant today than they were in the early 1970¡¦s.
Experts said society was still reluctant to acknowledge teenage sexuality and sexual activity.
There needed to be more openness at home, relevant sex education at school and easy availability of well publicised, confidential advice and contraceptive services.
Britain¡¦s teenage pregnancy rates are the highest in Europe where about 3% of teenage British women give birth each year at which one in three of these teenage pregnancies is terminated.
Almost all of these who give birth are 18 or 19 years old and many are in touch with their partner who tries to support them as best he can and of those who are not in touch marry later another one.
It is also as likely that a child born out of wedlock will later experience a traditional two parent family as that one born in wedlock will experience a lone parent family as a result of divorce.
Girls who become pregnant in their teens tend to be poor, unsuccessful, unable to see a hopeful future and attracted to motherhood as one viable role. So teenage parents are more likely to come from families with low socio-economic status and financial hardship.
For variety and economic reasons, some women feel that it is better to get childbearing over while they are young. For example such women say they can be friends with their children if they have them young, and still have time for further training and career.
The proportion of pregnant teenagers choosing motherhood declined sharply after the 1967 Abortion Act offered people the choice of terminating an unwanted pregnancy.
So the likelihood of a pregnant teenager having an abortion decreases with the age.
"Ñ ME, A MOTHER AT 15 ? NO WAY !
Looking after a computerised ¡§living doll¡¨ is making teenage girls think
twice about unprotected sex.
Dana Katherine doesn¡¦t even cry, but a red light in her computerised brain is flashing, evidence that she has had a rough start to live with Katie Hudson, her 15-year-old mother.
Katie does not look capable of hurting a baby, but she is furious while she is taking her first 48 hours of motherhood. Dana, her name only for the two days she is in the tender care of Katie, is one of the 100 computerised dolls in an attempt to help cut Britain¡¦s teenage pregnancy rate. Bought by schools, youth clubs and children¡¦s homes, the babies are being used to give teenage volunteers the short, sharp shock of early parenthood, without any of the joy. According to Katie are two days enough to make anyone think hard about unprotected sex. A stressful six times a day, for up to 35 minutes a time, Dana is programmed to emit an ear piercing cry. She will only stop when her mother inserts a plastic key into her back, simulating the relief of a bottle.
The Focus One youth club in Boston is a magnet for bored teenagers whose alternative attraction is petty crime. Ignorance and peer pressure are the prime causes of under age pregnancies. Many girls known to Focus One members are reportedly raped without recognising it as rape.
Katie is the first volunteer in the club who doesn¡¦t have a boyfriend, she is just in between relationships, she jokes. It is almost 15 hours since she got the baby for a weekend of disturbed and deprived sleep. As if Dana is waiting for the most embarrassing place to let rip, she lets out her metallic cry like an irritating announcement in the coffee shop of the town¡¦s department store.
For Katie it is bad enough that the doll makes a noise, let alone that anyone thinks it real. Once Dana started crying again, but if you don¡¦t get her clothes off and put the key in within a minute, the computer says that you have abused the baby because only the key stops the crying. All teenagers who already had to care about Dana were happy to give it back. The boys thought it was a big joke and hit the doll. They don¡¦t have to bear the consequences of getting pregnant.
Furthermore they have to be careful anyway and, after living with the baby for two days it really makes them be more careful.
In fact, the dolls are free of many of the irksome ingredients of early life such as sterilising, nappy changing, washing, colic and nappy rash. The idea is to give them a shock of the routine needed to look after a baby.
"Ñ SCHOOL PLAN FOR PREGNANT TEENAGERS
A school for expectant teenagers and schoolgirl mothers is being planned in Cheshire, to allow girls to continue their lessons during and after pregnancy.
They hope the school will enable them to achieve more in their education and give them support at this difficult time because many girls leave school when they become pregnant and never return to the education system. And that¡¦s why they also hope the school will encourage them back into education.
"Ñ YOUNG MOTHERS
The need for special support
Among the most vulnerable lone parents are very young mothers. Only five per cent of lone parents are teenage mothers, and with improved contraceptive information, advice and support, the percentage is declining. Bringing up a child in any circumstances is a demanding and testing business. Doing so alone is daunting.
Luckily most young mothers do have the support of their own families. But many teenage pregnancies are not discovered until the pregnancy is advanced. Often teenagers themselves have either not wanted to face the truth or been ignorant. They may have known but been scared to tell anyone.
Few parents are likely to feel joyful at the news. Most feel angry and let down.
As a parent or friend it is difficult not to pressurise to get the decision we want- this is her decision and she must live with the consequences. It is important that she faces up to the consequences of any decision she makes.
The aim is to help the young mother become an independent adult able to care for her child, so we might start off giving intensive support.
Having a healthy baby
Giving the baby the best start in life and looking after the mother¡¦s health is an important first step, also attending antenatal care is a must. Encouraging a proper diet with plenty of milk for calcium and fresh fruit and vegetables as well abstention from alcohol, tobacco or drugs is important.
Options for housing
If a young mother, who has been thrown out by her parents, is under 16 they will have to take her into local authority care and find her accommodation in a children¡¦s home, with foster parents or in a mother and baby hostel. Due to the lack of places, many local authorities only give one offer of a place to live.
Education training and work
Some schools have the facilities and are positive towards helping young pregnant women, others are not. The best long term option for the pregnant schoolgirl is to finish her studies, providing she is healthy and can cope. Some Local Education Authorities provide specialist units for pregnant schoolgirls in which some basic schoolwork is undertaken. Others will provide a few hours of home tuition each week. When she has had her baby it may be advisable to enter some form of further education or training.
"Ñ LONE PARENTHOOD
Problems to overcome
The rise in lone parenthood has been one of the most striking demographic and social trends of the last 25 to 30 years. The majority of one parent families are created as a result of separation and divorce. Parent and child alike may have experienced a good deal of pain in a separation and the parent may be trying to overcome bitterness in order to set up a positive relationship for the sake of the children.
Few experiences of relationship breakdown are easy, unless both partners want to separate and are very mature about their reasons for doing so. If one parent is being left with the children while the ex goes off with a new partner there is bound to be enormous anger and sense of betrayal. It is very hard for parents not to use children as a kind of battleground over which they fight to prove which one is in the right. Such parental fighting does a great deal of harm to children. Some of it is long term and may affect their health and prospects for success, and in many cases the harm is already done by the time the parents decide to separate.
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